SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – A South Dakota State University student faces state and federal child pornography charges. He’s accused of threatening a teenager to send him nude photos.
In May authorities in Brookings County received a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children about a Snapchat account sending images to a 14-year-old girl in Louisiana.
Court documents say that account belonged to 24-year-old Jaykob Varner who posed as different people, including a person named Katherine.
Authorities believe he used that account to receive nude photos from the girl and then threatened he’d tell her mother if she didn’t send him more.
Call to Freedom, CEO Becky Rasmussen says this is an example of traditional sextortion.
“Once you submit those or they receive, then essentially they say, I’m going to take this person or talk to this person your life and break that trust with you. So it’s really important to not send more pictures. And I think it’s really important for kids to understand, once you send a video and once you send a picture, you no longer own it,” Rasmussen said.
One way to help prevent these types of situations is through education.
“Perpetrators are very good at what they do. And our curriculum, which is called “Speak Up” we actually start with kindergarten and we talk to young kids about safety who are safe people and what qualifies as an unsafe person,” Rasmussen said.
Rasmussen says part of that education can be as simple as talking to your child.
“Let’s have the conversations with our children before they happen, because a lot of times when kids are asked for nude pictures or ask for inappropriate content as videos, essentially they don’t know any better,” Rasmussen said.
Varner’s jury trial date is set for Nov. 13.
Court documents say he’s from Las Vegas and was taking online classes while living in a dorm room at SDSU.
